Pendulum

02

~
Heath (flower): Solitude.
~

I trail up the stairs to my mom's room, carrying a tray of food along with a bottle of medication. Nudging open her door with the tray, I clear my throat to alert her of my arrival.

The room is submerged in darkness save for a sliver of sunlight peeking through the heavy drapes. My mom is wrapped in blankets — a product of her perpetually feeling cold — with her hair tied in a lousy bun. She turns slightly, eyes tired and body fatigued. As she seems to be all the time now.

"Hey, Mama," I say softly, setting the tray down at her bedside table and opening her drapes for the sunlight to stream in. She squints her eyes and brings a hand up to shield her face, then lowers back onto her pillow.

"What did the doctor say, hmm?" I murmur. "Soak in as much sun as you can."

She ignores my reprimands and croaks, "Is Arafat home yet?"

I still briefly at the sound of his name, heart hammering against my ribcage.

Mama continues as if she doesn't expect a response. "Let me know when he gets home. I'll cook him dinner."

I simply stand for a few moments, trying to claw away the heaviness settling like a suffocating cloud over me.

I can't bend under the pressure of this heaviness right now. I can only succumb to it when I'm alone.

So I take a deep breath and walk forward, settling down on the bed next to my mom and placing the tray of food in my lap. I push strands of hair out of her eyes and nudge her. "Sit up, Mama. You have to eat."

It takes her more effort than necessary to push herself up and rest her head against the headboard. I smile and gesture to the tray. "I made chicken soup today. Your favorite."

She responds with a weak smile. "Did everyone else eat?"

I resist the tears pricking at the corners of my eyes. My dad is at work. So everyone else currently only consists of my brother Ihsaan. And we don't talk like that anymore.

But I give my mom a nod anyway and begin feeding her.

She eats slowly, pausing occasionally to glance around at the room or finger a frayed patch in her clothes as if she's seeing it all for the first time.

When she's done she snuggles back into the blanket and closes her eyes. "Wake me up when it's asr time," she mumbles.

I nod and lean down to kiss her forehead. "Okay, Mama."

I start to head back to the kitchen with the tray. On the way downstairs, I'm lost in thought and trip over the last stair, pitching forward and losing my grip on the tray.

It clatters to the floor and the contents come tumbling out, clanging loudly in the silent house. I bend down and silently thank God that I used steel dishes instead of glass.

Footsteps rush towards me and when I look up, Ihsaan is bending down and murmuring, "Are you okay?"

I still briefly at the question. We haven't had a proper conversation in a very long time, and just hearing the brotherly concern in his voice brings the ache back to my heart.

"Yes," I whisper, watching robotically as he collects the dishes and sets them back in the tray. He rises with it and I mimic him, standing awkwardly in case he has something to say.

But he simply says "be careful" and places the tray in the kitchen, then retreats back to his room.

I shouldn't be surprised, though. It's become like this between us now. Minimal words, minimal conversations. And the conversations that do happen are always light and necessary, straying carefully away from topics that are too serious. We're no longer the brother and sister who bantered and playfully fought so constantly that Arafat had to sometimes intervene. We're no longer the Ihsaan and Hayat who called each other funny names and put salt instead of sugar in each other's coffee, racing to see who would complain to Arafat first.

Because I lost one brother by death. But I lost the other while he's still alive.

. . .

Assalaamu 'Alaikum,

broke my heart writing this. hope i didn't break yours, too. :(

thanks for reading.